Forever Yours
43
Interruptions
HENRY’S LIFE was an agglomeration of juggling product releases, projects, new hires, and wedding plans. Lisa had resigned as a contractor for Open Cloak and was focused solely on their wedding plans. Chastity was torn between the two, trying to execute her responsibilities in the office during the day and trying to support her girlfriend at night.
Amazingly, all three were able to maintain a semblance of sanity and support for each other.
“So, Henry and I are going down to Baton Rouge for the holiday,” Lisa said. “Are you sure you’ll be okay, boo?”
“Of course I will,” Chastity said. “I love you and I’ll be waiting here for you when you get home Monday.”
“I don’t know why I should be worried about meeting a minister,” Lisa said. “I don’t even believe in any of his mumbo jumbo. I can’t believe Isobel made Luke convert to Catholicism before they got married.”
“I don’t think either of them really care,” Chas said. “It was all Isobel’s mother. Izzy only pulls the religion card out when it suits what she wants someone to do. She just assumes your mother is being as irrational as hers was.”
“Well, thankfully, the only thing Mom required was getting married in the church. I didn’t even argue about it. It doesn’t make a difference to me, and it’s a pretty building,” Lisa said. “I think she was so surprised that I agreed immediately, she just forgot about all the backup things she had prepared. She was surprised when I told her only two bridesmaids, but Dad was all over that. He considered it a sign of the size of the wedding.”
“It seemed like an awful lot of invitations for a ‘small’ wedding,” Chastity laughed. “Oh! Henry just got home. Shall we have dinner?”
After a night of loving and little sleep, Henry and Lisa took off for Louisiana on Friday and Chastity went to work.
The Methodist minister was a laidback guy who asked them if they wanted him to wear a robe and vestments or just a business suit. Henry and Lisa immediately agreed to the suit idea. They didn’t mention it to Jackie. He’d even been understanding about the inclusion of Chastity in their family and ceremony, as if it was something that happened every day.
“Well, there’s just one more thing I want to do,” Rev. Jackson said before their meeting was over. They’d laughed a lot during the meeting and felt they got to know each other fairly well. The minister pulled his computer keyboard to him and tapped in a few words. He looked at the screen and cocked his head to one side while he considered it. “Hmm. What do you think of this?” He turned the monitor to Henry and Lisa.
Both looked at the screen in amazement.
“You use Pythia Speaks for things like this?” Henry asked. On the screen was the minister’s question and Pythia’s answer.
“She’s great for generating ideas,” Jackson said. “Really makes me think about things.”
On the screen the question was “What should I speak about at Henry and Lisa’s wedding?”
Pythia’s answer was a little more involved than Henry was used to seeing.
“Marriage is a union. A union is stronger than the parts. When one part is threatened, hurt, or even joyful, the union strengthens, comforts, and celebrates. And if things really aren’t going right, the union has the power to strike.”
“Um… Pythia sometimes doesn’t differentiate between meanings of a word,” Henry said. “I think everything is accurate, but it might not all fit with your message.”
“No. I think it works,” Lisa said. “Look at the key things, Henry. Pythia doesn’t talk about any religion or religious concept. She doesn’t even specify how many people can be in a union. She identifies the concept of mutual support in good times and bad. And believe me, if you were threatened, the union would strike.”
“Very good,” Jackson said, scribbling some notes. “We’ll go with that.”
On Monday, a very amused couple returned to Pittsburgh.
“I never imagined a minister would consult Pythia Speaks for sermon ideas,” Henry laughed when he got together with Luke on Tuesday. “I can’t imagine it’s very common.”
“I think you might be surprised,” Luke said seriously. “Ah. Darla is here. She said she had some important information for us.”
They welcomed their PR person into Luke’s office and summoned Chastity and Isobel to join them. This was not an official board meeting, so their newest member of the board was not present. The new investors, while buying non-voting stock, negotiated having a board member appointed. They had selected Professor Jacoby and he would join them at the June meeting.
“We would have expected a general marketing report at the board meeting in two weeks,” Luke said when they were settled around his conference table. “You indicated that you had information that we should be aware of right away. Please go ahead, Darla.”
“Thank you, Luke. Yes, this news is something you should be aware of. Pythia Speaks has gone viral. You all knew she was gaining users regularly, but since the foreign language versions started coming online, traffic is growing like never before. I expect we will have a million queries a day by the end of this week,” Darla said.
“Whoa! You have to be kidding!” Henry said. “I need to call the server farm and make sure everything is holding together. We didn’t anticipate that kind of traffic. Ever!”
“What’s driving so much traffic?” Isobel asked. “I mean that sounds like more than foreign language versions.”
“Yes. Remember when I said even negative publicity was still publicity? There seem to be people who are tearing into the concept as a tool of the devil. Of course, there are then people who have risen to support her and condemn the megachurches for their alarmism.”
“Megachurches?” Henry asked.
“Let’s take a look,” Darla said. “I brought a link to Sunday’s service at a huge church in Austin, Texas.” She turned her laptop toward them and increased the volume as the recording played.
“The Bible says God is sufficient for all our needs!” Evangelist and megachurch pastor Daniel Reeves spoke to his congregation. At the bottom of the screen a counter showed how many people were watching online. It was close to 30,000! “But this computer pretends to be God. People ask a stupid computer—stupid I say because there is no intelligence where it is artificial—the questions that only God can answer. They pray to the online idol. Fellow Christians, we never anticipated that the antichrist would come in the form of bits and bytes.
“But even this, God has prepared us for. God has given us salvation through his only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us therefore arm ourselves, as the Apostle Paul said, with the whole armor of God. Let us gird our loins with the Belt of Truth. There is only one truth and there is only one source of that truth. Let me tell you it is not a machine giving random advice from a mishmash of false religions. It is in the Bible and only the Bible has truth.
“‘Oh, Brother Daniel,’ you might complain. ‘What about science?’ My dearly beloved, science is a false prophet. Science has led us astray through disease pandemics when it would have had us injecting our bodies with poison in the name of preventing disease. Science claims there is no creator, but that people come from the evil-lution of lower species of animals. Science can’t even make up its mind if light is a wave or a particle. All we need to know is that God placed the lights in the heavens. God created man in his own image and woman to be his helper. God protected the righteous from the effects of the pandemic, or took them immediately to be with Him.
“And so I tell you, put on the Breastplate of Righteousness. Satan will bombard you with the arrows of advertising and public opinion and false gods. God’s word will protect you from their false claims. Put on the Shoes of the Gospel of Peace. My brothers and sisters, let there be no mistake that there will be times those shoes need to trample the evil beneath our feet in order to have true holy peace.
“Take up the Shield of Faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Science, history, politics, and all education are not proof of anything. If it contradicts our faith, let it slide off our shield and do us no harm.
“Put on the Helmet of Salvation. Yes, my friends, wrap your head in the immutable love of God’s saving grace. Let nothing enter your head that does not come through the filter of salvation. Would you turn your eyes and your questions to this oracle of degradation? No. You must wear God’s protection of your mind to keep it from being corrupted. For we struggle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and rulers of darkness, against the ones and zeroes of a digital idol.”
Rev. Reeves’ voice rang out in the sanctuary seating nearly 3,000 people in front of him. He stepped out from behind his pulpit and the camera followed him as he moved to the center of the chancel.
“We have a wonderful God,” he intoned. “He has given us this armor to protect us from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” No one seemed to notice he’d slipped into Shakespeare. “But we are not a passive faith. No, my friends, God calls us to do battle. And to do battle, he has armed us with the Sword of the Spirit—His holy word. And with our swords drawn, we must march into battle against God’s foes. We must bring down this abomination. Boycott the evil Pythia Speaks, named after a false god of the ancient Greeks. Boycott the companies who program it, host it, support it, and from this point even talk about it. Take your sword of the spirit and cut this cancer from our society. Let its blood be a sweet-smelling sacrifice to our God. Rise up and yell at the top of your lungs, ‘Not today, Satan! Get thee behind me!’ Let me hear you!”
The congregation stood as one and shouted the words, “Not today, Satan. Get thee behind me!”
“Great will be your reward in heaven,” Reeves concluded.
They discussed the threat and Darla pointed out that there were others of various religions who were refuting Reeves’ sermon, but it was obvious that both sides were driving more traffic and more visibility for Pythia Speaks.
“I’m most concerned that it might affect sales and use of Forever Yours,” Henry said. “Maybe we need to remove the link to the landing page.”
“He as much as challenged you to an open battle,” Isobel said. “You need to take this seriously if he mobilizes all of Christianity against you, Henry. We can’t have God against us!”
“God hasn’t been heard from in at least 2,000 years. Why would he be against us?” Henry said. “And why would I try to go to battle against something I don’t even believe in? Reeves doesn’t even have the biggest megachurch in the country. He’s just looking for a way to attract more attention.”
“Don’t be too flippant, Henry,” Luke said. “We have to take any threat seriously. Any number of things could trigger a boycott of all our products like Reeves suggested. We need to do whatever is necessary to protect ourselves and our company.”
There was more discussion, but they all went back to work more than a little disturbed.
Everyone was tense in the office. Chastity ordered security upgrades both for the office and for Page Services. Nancy went to security training and a new RFID card reader was installed at the doors. Everyone had to use their new ID card to get in.
“We hired a security team at Page Services,” Chastity said. “They are monitoring threats 24-7. While our office here has our development work, the server farm would affect four hundred businesses if it went down.”
“If, by some chance, we were brought down, it’s a temporary setback. We don’t collect personal data from people that could lead to identity breaches. We have backups made every fucking hour. We could shut down the entire server farm and be back in operation in ninety minutes,” Henry said.
“Okay. I’m not suggesting we’re not prepared, just that we need to treat the threats seriously, just like we’ve treated other threats we’ve received in the past year seriously,” Luke said.
“I don’t want to minimize it from that standpoint,” Henry said. “I’ve sent Darrel out to California to supervise installation of the network defense software. It’s still in testing, but we’re close to a release.”
“Just keep doing it,” Luke said. “I know you’re tired, Henry. The wedding’s in two weeks. Hire anyone you need to help ease the burden. Just let us know what we can do to help.”
“You guys, I don’t tell you often enough how much your partnership and your friendship mean to me. Without you, I’d have sold out my first inventions and quit. You all give me more purpose than any motivation of fame or fortune possibly could,” Henry said.
Chastity and Lisa left for Baton Rouge on Friday the twenty-second. Lisa’s mother and grandmother scheduled a wedding shower for Sunday afternoon and there was no sense arguing about it, even though Lisa protested that she didn’t need anything and that gifts should be made to a charity instead. Her mother assured her they would all be funny gifts. Lisa wasn’t sure who would attend besides her mother and grandmother and the one bridesmaid she’d selected from her high school class. Layla was a sweet girl and as much of a computer geek as Lisa.
Jackie and Solange had used Layla to search out another couple of friends from high school and then packed the rest of the shower with their own friends. It was embarrassing, but all in good humor as Lisa sat through several older ladies giving her and her friends marital advice.
Henry, Luke, Isobel, Josh, and Henry’s parents flew down on Thursday and went directly to the rehearsal. Rev. Jackson was in peak form as he directed people and had an assistant helping to make sure they were in the right positions. They practiced the procession and timing with the organist, and then met the soloist Solange had hired. It was good that Solange took care of the music because she asked Lisa what music she wanted. Her mother would have simply chosen and told her when she got there. The soloist did a pretty good job with a popular Taylor Swift song and they were happy.
With such a small wedding party, the part that took the longest was getting the parents and grandparents seated. Luke took the honors of seating Jackie after Solange and Beau had made the trip to their seats. Then he took his place beside Henry. Josh walked Layla up the aisle. Chastity walked alone and was followed by Lisa and Bill.
Lisa had chosen the triumphal entry march from EZ Daze’s most popular online game, which she had worked on. She and her father laughed all the way up the aisle.
Rev. Jackson went through the steps and asked them to review the vows to be sure he’d captured them correctly from the transcript Lisa and Henry had sent him. He didn’t say a thing about Chastity’s move to place her hands above and below Henry and Lisa’s as they recited their vows.
It was too late for a bridal dinner after the rehearsal. Instead, Solange and Beau invited the wedding party to their house to relax and have drinks. Solange had put together some delicious Cajun finger food so people would have something with their drinks.
The alcohol flowed freely and since there were drivers waiting to take them to their hotels, even Henry and Lisa had a drink to toast each other.
“Jesus!” Isobel exclaimed beneath her breath. “This is the house I want, Luke. And that drive between the trees from the street. Find me this house in Pittsburgh! I can’t believe this is Lisa’s grandparents’. How the hell did they get this kind of money?”
Luke managed to quiet her down. He took her for a walk outside where they stood under the bright moon that was just a few days past full. It was hard for Isobel to admit she was jealous, even though she and Luke were already millionaires and part owners of a multi-million-dollar business.
Luke and Isobel, Josh, and Ryan and Sylvia all stayed at the hotel not far from the church. Lisa, Chastity, and Layla stayed at the Hartmans’ home. Henry was left with Solange and Beau, and was encouraged to have one more drink with them before he went to the guest room.
Henry reached into his suitcase and pulled out a brown envelope.
“These are on file with our attorney in Pittsburgh,” he said, handing Beau the envelope. “We figured we should have a copy down here as well, so we decided to leave them with you.”
“The pre-nups?” Beau asked.
“And our wills. It seems pretty important,” Henry said.
“You have trouble, Henry?”
“Not yet. We just find that we need to be more security conscious. You’ll notice we have the same drivers who are driving us all around this week. That way they’ll be at the wedding and the reception. They’re paid security.”
“I could have provided that,” Beau said.
“We didn’t want you to worry about it,” Henry said. “Beau, there have been a lot of threats against the company in the past couple of months. There’s this preacher in Austin that has declared our Pythia Speaks as the antichrist. He preached a rousing sermon Memorial Day weekend whipping people up and encouraging them to don the whole armor of God.”
“Most every good preacher preaches that sermon at least once,” Beau snorted. He refilled both his and Henry’s cognac.
“Well, this preacher put particular emphasis on the sword of the spirit. Said that God’s armor wasn’t just passive. He sent his people out to war against the principalities and powers and computers. I’m sure he’s raised a million dollars just by selling a ceramic lapel pin of a flaming sword. My IT guy is out in San Jose at our server farm and sent us pictures this week of pickets who have started parading in front of the building. Some of them are carrying signs with the flaming sword on them.”
“That’s a hell of a way to start your married life,” Solange said. “You keep our girls safe!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Henry agreed.
Even though the news was bad, it felt good to share it with someone in Lisa’s family. He wasn’t sure if Lisa had shared it with her father and mother.
“We’ve dealt with threats over the years. Always had good labor relations with our employees, but the waterway wasn’t always safe. Upstart shipping companies figured piracy wasn’t a bad way to supplement their income at times. To this day, every tug has an armed guard on it. Haven’t had an incident this century, but I’m not about to let my guard down.”
“I hope you’ve included that in your stories,” Henry said.
“You know, every time I turn around it seems there’s something else I need to record. What you got me into!” Beau laughed.
They finished their drinks and all headed to bed.
The next day was filled with tours of the city and finally included a bridal dinner at the hotel near the church. Henry’s parents paid for the dinner and it was a great way to spend the evening before the wedding. There were toasts by all the fathers and then the mothers took their turns, adding to the stories of their children that were guaranteed to brighten a few cheeks. Henry managed to make one glass of champagne last through all the toasts.
Fathers, grandfather, mothers, and grandmother, all included Chastity as part of the family as they offered their toasts. They didn’t have stories about her youth and she would have been mortified if they’d told any. But Henry had checked twice since the purge and no sign of her prior life had re-emerged on the internet.
This time, after dinner, Henry and the women had rooms at the hotel as well. The women would be going for a spa treatment in the morning while the men were planning a round of golf. The wedding wouldn’t be until five-thirty in the evening, unlike Luke and Isobel’s mid-day Catholic wedding.
Henry got to his room about eleven o’clock and checked on the reports his teams had left for him. It seemed everything was stable at the offices and with the servers.
He was in his boxers and preparing for bed when there was a knock at the door. He grabbed the bathrobe off the bathroom door and went to answer the door. Lisa had told him that he couldn’t see her again until the wedding, but Chastity had made no such commitment. She had her own room because she didn’t like to wake up next to anyone.
He opened the door and was nearly bowled over by the barely clad woman who rushed in to kiss him and wrap her legs around his waist.
“Isobel! What the fuck?”
End Part III
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
